Some you may wonder why these versions are called Alpha and not Beta as usual when we ask people to test software. I'm just waiting to have implemented all features to call the versions Beta. This means when we will be in Beta test, we're going to just fix bugs but not change features. While we're in Alpha, we can still change a lot of stuff...
But it's nearly over! There are just a few more features to implement (and some to re-implement from Duik 15 which have not been transfered yet)...

There are three important new features since the latest Alpha I shared here:

Rookie mode: in previous versions, there were the expert mode (smaller UI), and the standard mode (all features and nice buttons). I've added a Rookie mode (which is the one enabled by default) in which the most advanced tools are hidden. This makes the UI smaller than the standard mode, but still very functionnal, as a great amount of work has been done to make the tools smarter and easier to use.

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FK Overlap in the rigging tools, which you can see in action in the animation above (combined with the well-known Spring tool).
This is going to be a very useful tool for rigging tails and ropes... Let's watch what it can do.

Basic use:

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With a shape and bones (this was done quickly with just some parenting, I think the tangents could be rigged to obtain a better curve):

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And the third great new feature is the IK/FK Switch tool (in the animation panel/Tools).

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Be careful, this tool won't work with IK created with a previous version. Actually, you may encounter some bugs when opening a project rigged with an older version of Duik 16, in this case, you may have to restart After Effects. This is just because those are Alpha versions, and the version management of the effects used by Duik has not been implemented yet. Of course, this will be done in the Beta and public release.

Let me know what you think of all these tools, this month I should have more time to work on Duik, and I hope to have implemented all the remaining features in the upcoming weeks.

The keyframe types button in the Animation panel can now be used to create keyframes on all animated properties.

Extract controllers automatically from a precomp to your main composition, and animate outside of the precomposed character. Scale, flip, flop the character as you need. With After Effects > 15.1, extracted controllers can use Master Properties to be able to animate several instances of the same rig, in the same project.

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The Auto-rig is now smart enough to detect what you need if you're applying it to something else than predefined Structures. The IK and FK buttons have been removed from the Rookie UI mode, and moved into the Auto-rig options in the Standard and Expert modes.

A new automation, the Looper allows to add both a loopIn and a loopOut on several properties at once, and control them with an animatable effect. The loops can be of the standard three types: "Cycle", "Offset, "Ping Pong", and "Continue".

The Effector now has two modes: Circle or Infinite line.

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You can now import your traditionnal animations from Krita, just export them as CSV!

There are a lot of other improvements and a bunch of bug fixes, the comprehensive list is available on the Duik Wiki, which has been greatly improved too.

We're closing to the public release of Duik, there are just a few features to add, and I've begun to implement the new help system, and write some documentation. I can't resist to show it to you right now, although it will be available only in the next Alpha version.

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The help for any tool will be displayed when click on the button while holding the Shift key

Unzip the files to the folder:
"C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects\Support Files\Scripts\ScriptUI Panels" on Windows,
"/Applications/Adobe After Effects/Scripts/ScriptUI Panels/" on Mac

There are two files, Duik, of course, and ffmpeg which is needed by the latest features added in Duik. Note that this ffmpeg file is only for windows, you can ignore it on Mac (yes, this means some features won't work on Mac yet, sorry!)
What's new ?

The contextual help panel will explain you how to use the tools. Just click the "?" button in Duik, or Shift+Click any tool to open it.
Note that only a few tools are documented right now, but everything will be completed before Duik Bassel will be released to the public.

The animation blender is a simple yet awesome tool to trigger animations using markers! I love it, and it is explained in the new contextual help.

I have added some useful predefined behaviors to the 2D Camera, to quickly animate shoulder cameras or camera shakes.

I have re-implemented the Export to Audition tool from Duik 15, and it now exports keyframes on audio levels too! (This is the feature which won't work as it should on Mac yet: transcoding is available only on Windows for now)

Thanks to your feedback, there's a bunch of improvements and bugfixes too

And next?

Almost every features have been implemented.

This means we're going to Beta test in June, and I hope to release Duik Bassel by the end of the month, or maybe early July.

I'll be giving the first Beta to the people I meet at the Annecy Festival next week, and to you of course.

This means we have the month to fix any bug we can find (especially on Mac), finish writing the documentation, and translate Duik in French, at least.

I'll record new tutorials with this version in September and the following months, after some vacations I really need in August. I'll be happy to give these tutorials to you, and all the people who already bought the video course of Duik 15.

Don't forget there's a wiki with a comprehensive user guide to help you to learn Duik.
Well... The user guide is not comprehensive yet, but it's my mission before the public release of Duik: I have to finish to write it!
Like for Duik 15, there will be a nice color-printed version you can buy, and we're going to make new official tutorials too!

Duik Bassel will also be translated to French and probably to Spanish before its release.

Download!

Here are the two links to get this Release Candidate:

Windows
Installation: Unzip and copy all the files to "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects CC\Support Files\Scripts\ScriptUI Panels"

Mac OS
Installation: Unzip and copy all the files to "/Applications/Adobe After Effects CC/Scripts/ScriptUI Panels"